The Human Question

Somewhere Hume says it is conceivable that at least one thing can come into being without  a cause, and he illustrates this claim, I believe, with the example of a rabbit that at one moment is not imagined to be somewhere (i.e., at whatever location one is imagining) and at the next moment is in full view.  Hume thinks this illustrates the possible event of a thing coming to be without a cause.  But it seems to me that it might equally be an example of creatio ex nihilo .

At one point in his Design Revolution he indicates that the design component could have been placed in matter with the big bang at the beginning of the universe (my comment: in this case ID would fall under the anthropic principle). At another point (chapter 19) he suggests that information enters ex nihilo (with a little help from quantum indeterminacy)--not at the beginning of the universe, but--after the creation of the universe. I suppose both could be affirmed as partial explanations, so it is not a case of a clear-cut inconsistency. But why isn't he clear on this? Maybe he is treating this issue an an empirical one and is exploring two possible options that would both be consistent with the very general thesis that some type of ID at some time helped originate the present species. Also, maybe the talk of ex nihilo another way of saying that design is not something that you can quantify. It's a kind of qualia , as in the qualia that escape description of sensation ...